The present invention relates to a belt conveyor and, more particularly, to a belt tensioning or take up assembly for use in a belt conveyor.
In belt conveyors, in order to maintain consistent and accurate speed for the conveyor belt, it is necessary to properly tension the belt to insure that there is no slippage of the belts with respect to its drive rollers. The normal way of tensioning a belt is to wrap the belt around a moveable pulley, the pulley being moved to tension the belt by counter weights, air cylinder pressure, or a threaded shaft that is turned to move the pulley along a track. A problem with the conventional threaded shaft design is that measurements must taken both prior to and after moving the pulley to make sure that the pulley is moved the same amount with respect to both side frame members so that belt tracking is maintained. Thus, it is an object of the present invention to provide a tensioning mechanism for a belt conveyor that is easy to adjust and maintains proper tracking of the conveyor belt.